 I just, it's just so genius, like it's just so good. Excuse me, I'm a genius. Look. Friends, I hope you're well. Now, this is a very exciting, but also incredibly nervous reading vlog. A picture fight, a picture fight. I think a lot of you know that I am running a read-along the winter night trilogy in November, December, and January with Riley, Nicole, and Aaron. And I'm going to read the first one now. I'm terrified. So this reading vlog is a follow, Bear and the Nightingale by Karatyn Arden. I thought since I was running the read-along, it may make sense to do a reading vlog for each of the books. So I know this isn't something that everyone's going to want to watch, but you should. Because it's the best series of all time. Like it's literally the best fantasy series of all time. I don't make the rules. It's the truth. So this is one of my favorite fantasy series ever. I read it before I had my booktube channel. And we follow Vasya as she lives in northern Russia in the woods. And it's all about old magic and fairy tales and how spirits and dark religion and family relationships. And it's just brilliant. It's the most magical fairy tale-like story ever. It's been a year and a half. I think I forgot until I saw a lot of people's reactions to it in the Goodreads group that we have. Just kind of how like small this first story is, how very much contained it is. And the other books kind of break out of that a bit. But I'm still so excited to be back with Vasya and her family in northern Russia. But I'm terrified because what if I don't like it as much? That is a big concern. I'm not good at rereading my favorite books. Like I'm really not good at it because what if I don't like it? I want to love it as much as I always have. This copy is very battered by the way because I have lent it out to so many people. Like I think maybe six different people have read this copy. Okay, we're going to read it. The intensity, the prayers going up, you know? And I just felt like this is the most. I'm going to go start it and I'll check back in with you once I have read a bit of it. I have just hit page 55. So I've literally just read the start. I love it. I love it so much. The album's amazing song to song. I've always said it rude like a fairy tale. Like it's just this magical old Russian fairy tale. And that's what it is like coming back into it. It's just so magical. I forgot how brilliant it was to follow Vassia from literally before she is born. And in those 50 pages, she's already about seven. And by the end of the series, Vassia is like a woman. And I just forgot how brilliant it is to follow her from her beginning to the climax of the last book. Also, there's so many more meanings to stuff now that I've read the whole series. I mean, obviously, Catherine Haddon hadn't written like the last book, maybe even the second book when this came out. But you see where certain storylines are gonna go. And it just rather than it feeling like, oh, that's boring. Oh, I know where this is going. Like there's so much more enjoyment and added layers through having read it. Oh God, I love Vassia. That's just such an icon. Like she's a legend. She's an icon. She's a legend. And she is the moment. Now come on now. One thing I'm realizing reading this now again and having read a lot more in the space is I read this last. I read this last about a year and a half ago. And in that time, I've probably read like 150 books, which was more than I had read in like the 10 years previous, right? In my reading since I first read this, I've run into a lot of books where I felt like characters were just caricatures or archetypes, right? Not having a lot of depth to them, just being this one singular characteristic. However, I always believe that archetypes can be done well. Archetypes are done brilliantly in this book. Catherine Arden just being amazing at everything she does. Well, I can't make the music not Bob. I can't make the music not Bob. I don't know what y'all want me to do. The family members. So each of Vassia's brothers and sisters and her dad and the nurse, Danya, all have a role to play. They all have a specific archetype to play. You have the devout religious one. You have the motherly one. You have the kind of strong, bold one. You have the playful one. They all have these distinct characteristics that they don't stray from too much in the story because ultimately it is Vassia's story and they're meant to explore different aspects of old Russian society and different aspects of the plot. Her family are some of my favorite characters in the series because they are done so well in this simplistic way. So I think if an author wants their characters to kind of be archetypal to have these key characteristics that they don't stray from too much, this is a great example of that. I feel like it is simplistic in a really brilliant way. As much as I love like overcomplicated books full of different, you know, full of a really dense plot and you know, really complex well-building. I also love simple books and I've spoken about this before how I love simple murder mysteries and this is one of the only fancy books that I've read. The other two aren't as simple I would say but this one is and I think it's just done so well. I think there's a lot to be said when a book is simple and it's perfect, right? That's hard. That is hard to not have so much going on. It's hard to be really stripped back and still be perfect. I'll check in with you when I finish part one which is about 120 pages. Yeah, about page 120. So I'll read like another 60 pages and then I'll check in with you. Finish part one, Vassia, for those of you who don't know and haven't read this, Vassia isn't actually in this first section that much. There's a lot of her dad and her brother's going to Moscow for like political reasons, trying to find wives, trying to like establish themselves within the connections they have within like those in power essentially, like with the grand prince and stuff like that. So Vassia isn't in it much. The first section is definitely setting up the past for all of our other characters other than Vassia and how they affect her. I just love it. You already know. It's actually amazing to be back with these characters. It's such like a just cozy, wonderful story for this time of year. Part two is actually really big. Part two is like 200 pages. So I think what I'm going to do is I'm going to read 100 pages and check in with you then read the other 100 pages to the end of part two. I've got a lot of uni work to do today but I'm hoping to just get it done quite fast and take breaks with this. So like take 20 minute breaks here and there. That's the plan. Now where that goes is, I always cut myself out at the end, like saying, oh I'm going to go read now because I never do it. Like I never fulfill the hopes and dreams that I have. I never read as much as I want to as much as I say I want to in these clips. So like I never include it in my videos. Clap if you care. Clap if you, clap if you care. I can at the very least read 100 pages. If not, I really want to get to the end of part two and then tomorrow I only have the end to read. So I think we can do it. Okay, let's go make food. Put into words how brilliant this book is. How amazing it is. 10 out of 10, 10 out of 10. Yep, yep, yep, yep. She ate that up. And it is a bit difficult to talk about because I forgot just how much of like a quiet slow book this first book is. I said this before when I've spoken about this series is that the series is such a good job of having like a really marked expansion of the world between each book. So the world really expands in these different ways in each book, but it feels very natural. The end of the last book sets itself up perfectly for the world to become bigger in the next book. But it feels natural, but you can feel, oh my gosh, we have just opened this up in such a new and exciting ways each time. So having read the last book, when I come back to this book, I'm like, oh my God, it's so small and simple and quaint. The stakes are so much lower. It's very strange coming back to this book and seeing how much of a difference occurs within the series, but I do love it so much. Something I love, right? I love fantasy that is connected to nature is like woodish in some ways. Like I love settings in the woods with magic. Like there's just not enough of it. There's just not enough of it. What's the solution to that then? This one is interesting because you do have the house spirits, you have the forest spirits that Vasya is desperately trying to keep alive and to keep the memory of alive. The nature is connected to them, but the nature and the setting, these people are so dependent on the nature around them. It just has repercussions and mirrors the story at every turn. Like we are constantly getting descriptions of the weather or the setting. It mirrors and it affects everything that happens in the story. I just, it's just so genius, like it's just so good. Excuse me. I'm a genius. Look. I am realizing just how brilliant Catherine Arden is. She planned this, like she might say that she didn't, but like there's so much I'm noticing now, reading it again. Like there's so much I didn't pick up on. There's so many character relationships, like for example, Father Constantine, who is the priest who is kind of forced for political reasons to come and be the priest where in Vasya's community. And he's really trying to like rid the community of those old spirits that Vasya is then trying to keep alive. And their relationship is a very interesting one. And I don't think I picked up on all the nuances of it. When I first read this, I'm going to finish it today. I've got about 180 pages left. I love it so much. Look guys, it's so brilliant. I hope you're all enjoying it. I just finished part two of The Bear and the Nightingale. I have just remembered like how much this book comes into its own in part three. Part three is just so good. And everything starts to come together and everything starts to move the story along. Secondly, forgot how brilliant it was that the horses can speak. The horses speak. Don't be closed-minded because you will not get anywhere in life. Vasya can speak with the horses and just her relationship with them and like understanding of the horses. Never thought I would say I love, but I love. And just to kind of the past 50 pages, I downloaded the audiobook because someone messaged me about it. And I just realized like, oh, why didn't I give that a go? I wanted to give it a go. Here's the thing, I don't love the audiobook. Like I don't know if I'd listened, if I'd read it first time via audiobook, if I would have fallen as in love with it as I did reading it normally. But rereading it and reading along with the book via audiobook for the second time, it feels like someone is reading me like one of my favorite childhood stories because it's written like this fairy tale. And is there something really magical about hearing someone recount that to you? So I really like the audiobook. I'm really loving it, but I don't know. Because it's not my first time reading the book, I don't know if I can recommend you reading it that way. I literally cannot emphasize to you enough how many lines are now gaining meaning now over the whole series. Like I love it when a series does this because you find out new things. There's so many hidden meanings and so many lines of things that don't make sense until the last book, like the end of the last book. And now it makes sense to me reading it back through. And I just love it. Like it's just so good. Catherine Arden is one of the best writers I've ever read. The way that this is written, the prose, the lyricalness to it, the fairy taleness to it, it's just so magical. Me after every single line in the book. That was beautiful. You did such a good job of expressing yourself. Vasya is probably one of my favorite book characters of all time. So I'm gonna go finish this off tonight and then I will check back in with you in the morning. I've only got about 70 pages left. I finished it and it's still five stars. Of course it is. It's still one of my favorite books. This is actually probably my least favorite in the trilogy just because of how much the series grows as it goes on. The second one is definitely my favorite and the third one is my second favorite. This is still a five star, still one of the best fantasy books that I have read. Part three, the last part of this book really starts to bring in higher magic that we haven't experienced yet throughout it and it's just done so massively. I love it. I love it. This book is feminist as hell. Like Vasya is constantly having to fight against what is expected of women at this time, what is expected of her, like what people think she can do and how she's trying to prove to them that she can do so much more. She'll save people's lives and then people will be angry at her that she's done that because she acted in a way that all women shouldn't act but that person would be dead if it wasn't bad. We also have a lot of morally gray characters in this if that's something you enjoy. There's a lot of characters, particularly whose back stories were built up in that first part that I told you about where Vasya isn't in it too much, who we know what they've come from, we know what they've gone through and they act in ways that we hate, right? They act in ways that we despise them for but we know what they've been through and so you can't fully hate them. There's villains in this but there's almost not any real villain and I think that every villain or dark character or character who commits bad things is like that and I really enjoy when a book isn't just like, oh, they're a bad person, you know, that's all it is. I really like books that really take a deep dive into why people may be like that. I just love how contained and small and perfect in its simplicity this book is and the world expands. I'm so excited to read the girl in the tower next month. This is my favorite in the series. The way that this brings in like political intrigue and betrayal is just amazing but the atmosphere of this was impeccable. Like everything of it was impeccable. Like I don't really have anything bad to say. Like if you were hoping for a nuanced vlog or any nuanced vlogs in this, it's not gonna go well. It'd be a perfect save. I can't, I can't. I've tried it and I failed. Why does everyone expect it then? Because I'm just gonna be talking about how much I love it all the time. I'm really intrigued to see what my co-hosts think of this book when they read it. I don't think any of them have read it yet. I think they're all gonna be starting it soon and I'm really scared but really intrigued because I think in the live show they might come up with some things that I wouldn't have come up with. Make sure you join us for the live show. If you're reading this, there's still plenty of time. You've still got basically half the months to read this and it reads so fast. I'll leave all the links down below for the Goodreads group where we discuss it part by part, Twitter and our live show will be either right at the beginning of December or maybe at the end of November. I'll let you know on the Twitter and the Goodreads group. We're just working out days that we can all do. Oh my God, it was so much fun to reread this and maybe this will make me reread favorites more often. I've got to ask a favor of you for a different video and you'll probably like what I'm doing straight away but I had this thought last night and I often like think for video ideas and don't do it for three months so I'm actually trying to seize on this. Let me know in the comments if you've ever read a book character that reminds you of me or that you've read before and you think I have the same energy as. I wanna know any book characters I'm similar to like personality wise, okay? Comment that down below if you know any. If you're joining us for the read along, thank you so much and I will see you very soon with another video. Bye.